This practical and detailed guide teaches you exactly how to stand out in the right way and separate yourself from the hundreds of other applicants vying for social media jobs by creating the very best social media resume.

Social media management and online marketing jobs are still allow you the chance to grow with this burgeoning industry – if you start now. However, all to often corporate hiring managers don’t understand the ins and outs of digital marketing. What is Hootsuite? Facebook Power Editor? Online influencers? That’s what plenty of hiring people are thinking when tasked with hiring the company’s next social media manager. Unfortunately, these new and roughly-defined positions invariably attract job applications from every person who has ever made a Facebook profile. This means that explaining your experience in a detailed and clear manner is essential in creating a great resume that will help you rise in the ranks of digital marketing.

You’ll need more than 140 characters to stand out from the other Social Media Coordinators and Digital Strategists in the world. For this, you’ll need to go old-school. While other job candidates are sending off their resume full of buzzwords without context, your best weapon is a well-crafted resume with content that explains what you’ve actually done and accomplished. (Hint: It will be more than you think.)

The Resume to Interviews team has created resumes and CVs for 5,200 clients since 2007. In that time, we have developed a four step process that you can use to create a clear, concise, and effective resume. This guide will explain how to use our four step process to create a resume for positions in social media, regardless of how much experience you have. So let’s get started!

A key part of landing any social media management position is showing that you are up-to-date with cultural, internet, and industry trends.

That’s why you need to make sure that the first line of your resume doesn’t betray you as out of touch. One bit of antiquated resume advice that people keep following is including an “Objective Statement” at the top of the resume. Don’t do this. If somebody is reading your resume, they know your objective already. If you can’t hook the reader in your opening sentence, how can you be expected to draw attention with 140 characters when you’re promoting your employer on Twitter?

Instead, you should use a “Summary of Qualifications” or “Profile”, which explains your abilities relative to the job you are seeking. This means that your opening sentence is only going to contain the experience and skills that you have which are the most relevant to the position. Read the difference between an objective statement and a summary of qualifications statement.

Objective Statement: Bad Example

Seeking employment in the social media sector, including Facebook marketing.

Summary of Qualifications: Good Example

A Social Media Manager with five years of media promotions work experience, specializing in the research, planning, development, analysis, and management of mass media marketing initiatives.

The idea is to make the reader think that you are exactly what they are looking for. To do this, the summary or profile should mirror the desired experience, skills, and requirements in the job posting. Use your favorite job search engine to find those jobs searching strategically. A topic like social media and a specific software like Hootsuite is a good start.

However, it should also not exaggerate your existing abilities and experiences. (Hint: Being on Facebook since 2008 does not count as “six years of experience.”)

As a side note, if you have a marketing or graphic design portfolio or any other link that is relevant to the job, you can list it as a bullet point directly underneath the summary section, so readers can see it immediately.

Employers looking to hire applicants for social media jobs are seeking people who can create great content. This means that your resume needs engaging, concise, and clear content to demonstrate that you can do the job. You have to convey big picture information while mentioning specifics and details. This is a careful balancing act. We are going to show you exactly how to maintain that balance.

If you already have experience in social media, either professionally, personally or in a volunteer role, it’s going to be very easy come up with the content that becomes the basis for your professional-grade resume.

Start by listing what you do every day, in  a basic format. Don’t try to make a paragraph or a story out of it, that just makes it more complicated than it needs to be.

For some Social Media positions, the list can look something like this:

• Update social media accounts (Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, etc.)
• Create and promote events on social media networks
• Coordinate paid social media campaigns
• Write blog posts
• Attend client, company, and industry meetings and conferences
• Develop partnerships for online influencers and brands
• Review the analytics (Google Analytics, Tweetreach, SproutSocial)

Good questions to ask yourself during this phase are “do I then document these numbers in reports?” or “What kind of research am I doing?” Remember, the things you do every day are only mundane to you because you’re the one who does them every day. For someone else, these tasks are the key to knowing what qualifies you for the available position. Write down everything and be thorough.

Good questions to ask yourself during this phase are “do I then document these numbers in reports?” or “What kind of research am I doing?” Remember, the things you do every day are only mundane to you because you’re the one who does them every day. For someone else, these tasks are the key to knowing what qualifies you for the available position. Write down everything and be thorough.

Once you write these basic duties down on your document, the next step is to explain and expound. The best way to do that is to use numbers for as much as you can.

How long were the blog posts?

How often did you write them?

What were they about?

For Facebook and Twitter, it’s important to list how many followers/fans you reached or the levels of engagement you attained. Did the hashtag you promoted trend on Twitter? You can even make a simple bullet point out of saying how many followers you started with and how many followers you ended with. If you can do that, you can also explain the tactics used in a number of bullet points to show how you increased the following.

Each point should contain at least three of the four following pieces of information:

• A: What you actually did. (ex: “Developed campaigns…”, “Gathered feedback…”, “Analyzed trends…”)
• B: The software/platform used whenever possible. (ex: “With Google Analytics”, “using Hootsuite”)
• C: Why you did it/who you did it for, if applicable. (ex: “to determine engagement levels”, “in support of the Marketing Director”)
• D: The results/improvements, if there are any and they are impressive.  (EX: “which raised engagement by 20%”, “for a 15% traffic increase”, “increased followers from 1,000 to over 50,000″)

Note: You’re being hired to deliver information quickly and concisely. Limit yourself to two lines per bullet point. If your information spills over to another line, either cut it the information that extends the bullet point to three lines or the additional information a bullet point unto itself.

If the listing wants you to show off SEO skills (which many of them do), you can take the “SEO-optimized” part of that sentence and write another line from it. What do you do to perform SEO on these article? What techniques are you using? How do you track the results?

You also want to start each job’s content with a general, overarching bullet point that introduces the reader to the job and your responsibilities at that particular position. This establishes the context for everything that comes after. People only absorb information if they understand the context. If someone is reading a resume and can’t figure out the scope of your responsibilities or what kind of company you worked for, then you have a problem.

That’s only if they keep reading at all; often a bunch of data without context is enough to get a resume tossed. Establish scope and context in the first bullet point.

Specifically, that first bullet point should establish:

1. The scope of your responsibility. This should what platforms/accounts you managed and how big they were in terms of users or followers.
2. What kind of company you worked for and how large it was.
3. How many people under you or how large the team you were on was.

Have you ever played mad libs?

That’s basically what we are going to do right now, except the end result will be resume content that clearly  communicates your skills and experience to potential employers. Paste the content below under each job on your resume. Then insert the correct numbers and details where appropriate. Delete any bullet points that don’t apply to your experience.

The base of a good job description is all here. You only need to edit the details to personalize your resume. Your most recent job will typically have the most content. If you end up repeating content across multiple jobs, delete the duplicate content from the older jobs and leave it in the newest one. You want to show that you are adding responsibilities as you progress in your career, and you want to show that your knowledge is fresh and up to date. That’s why duplicate content goes in the newest job.

Social Media Management Job Description Mad Libs Guide:

1. Underline = replace specific details with your own
2. Bold = replace numbers with your own

Starter Sentence: Examples of sentences you can use as the first sentence of your Social Media Management job description. Choose one that is the closest to your experience and change the details.

• Founded, managed, and grew a WordPress career blog and community to approximately 30K visitors per month, 10K+ Twitter followers, and 3K+ Facebook “likes”.
• Implemented and managed a dedicated social media program for an FTSE 100 water and waste treatment distribution company serving 8MM customers throughout the U.S.
• Created social and content ecosystems incorporating social media and blogger outreach, digital content creation, content and social audits, community and blog management, and monitoring and reporting.
• Developed content creation internet marketing programs in support of an SEO team’s initiatives for a portfolio of B2B clients in the heavy equipment and technology industries.
• Created and executed integrated marketing programs that delivered maximum results in collaboration with a team of nine staff, including Designers, Developers, Copywriters, and SEO and SEM Managers.
• Oversaw fifteen moderators during the management and growth of a video game news network online community from 28K to 450K users.
• Created, engaged and grew an online developer and gaming community with 16K indie developers and 80K gamer accounts, including 120 live chat users, 1.6K forum members, 4K Facebook fans and 3.5K Twitter followers.
• Managed online marketing and social media for seven small businesses, including chiropractic, dentistry, and massage therapy clients.

Descriptions of duties: bullet points you can use throughout your Social Media Manager job descriptions.

• Recruited and managed twelve Contributing Writers that produced over 850 SEO optimized articles.
• Managed product review, product giveaway, contest, and sponsored blog posts in coordination with brands.
• Led a Radian6 social media listening and monitoring initiative with secondary research to arrive at insight discovery and competitive analysis for large payment processor client.
• Managed and executed a keyword-driven editorial calendar of blog posts and related content for 3 client blogs.
• Developed and executed a 60-day premium blogger outreach program that resulted in seven prominent paid media placements and three major fashion blogger product reviews.
• Edited client website copy with a keyword-driven editorial calendar and blog posts that contributed to a 150% increase in website traffic for a heavy equipment company.
• Created social media style guides, keyword/CTA-driven editorial calendars, and influencer outreach campaigns for a technology company that resulted in a 400% traffic increase in 30 days.
• Developed an email acquisition guerilla marketing street team program in three markets and strategic alliances with organizations, festivals, events and local government.
• Increased the contact list by 25% with 20K new email subscribers in under 3 months to exceed the CPA goal.
• Managed Marketing Coordinators that oversaw approximately 85 Street Team Interns in three cities.
• Launched and managed the blog and all social media channels on Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.
• Implemented a Hootsuite social media management platform that improved average response time from 40 to 30 minutes per inquiry, and improved water industry incentive SIM score from 7th to 5th place.
• Created and trained thirty-member social media support staff on content creation, crises management, and customer support, enabling 24-hour customer service.
• Wrote business cases, identified skills, created job descriptions, and managing internal recruitment and training during support staff development.
• Developed social media expansion strategies, including YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest and Vine platforms.
• Achieved Facebook engagement rates up to 5% above the industry standard by creating content targeted to key active areas, adding value, and engaging with customers.
• Created daily Twitter and Facebook articles, photos, campaign infographics, and video content.
• Gathered stakeholder requirements, planned key messages, and scheduled content calendars while developing three outreach campaigns.
• Delivered five presentations on social media using original research and practical demonstrations to the Executive Committee, Property Management, and Visitor Experience departments.
• Created a community development and marketing strategy, in collaboration with the Business Manager, which included goals and timelines as well as community growth and active user targets.
• Tested and deployed new measurement, moderation and support tools including Google Analytics, CrispThinking Netmoderator, FreshDesk and internal tools.
• Produced a weekly community podcast, which included researching topics and arranging guest panelists.
• Delivered and trafficked online advertising campaigns across twenty Pan-European websites in collaboration with internal sales, design and technical teams.
• Increased brand awareness and user engagement with weekly Twitter, Facebook, and WordPress website campaigns and contests while tracking daily user engagement with Hootsuite.
• Doubled Facebook fans and Twitter followers by securing 40K fans and 10K followers in three months.
• Tracked social media campaign metrics using Crowdbooster, Radian6, Postling, and Buffer.
• Monitored SEO trends with Google Trends, while composing and presenting weekly strategy reports with A/B data testing results.
• Promoted platform launch party through social media networking, securing promoter partnerships, doubled expected total attendance, and increased desired demographic attendance by 20%.
• Tracked metrics, including number of attendees, demographics, press coverage, subsequent website hits, and post-launch customer utilization.
• Secured eight new cross-marketing, media sponsorship, and event planning partners.
• Identified and engaged potential partners at weekly trade shows, evaluating show value by number of desired attendees.
• Created a new Brazilian market entry plan by gathering local market information and evaluating previous entry strategy and local partnerships using qualitative market analysis.
• Conducted cost/benefit analysis on social media marketing campaigns using visibility metrics.
• Updated client social media pages biweekly with Tweetdeck and Hootsuite, and determined resulting bounce rates with Google Analytics.
• Researched and vetted supporting data from white pages and B2B social media guides based on feedback and quality of citations.
• Set up and calibrated a Meltwater account to track user sentiment of forty social media efforts that scanned all online mentions of the company and rated them as positive or negative.
• Redesigned the customer communication plan, email blasts and landing pages to improve customer engagement, increasing e-mail click-through rates by 60%.
• Defined marketing objectives for the Divisional Director of Marketing based on Profit & Loss meetings.
• Oversaw event sponsorship and negotiated marketing agreements which saved the company $10K.
• Identified market opportunities through keyword searches and analysis of site and forums popularity through Alexa Rankings.
• Created a social media dashboard that automatically compiled social media metrics from Google Analytics, bitly urls, and Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LinkedIn statistics.

You also want to list any major projects or improvements you have been responsible for. Write descriptions of those projects using some of the bullet points above as a starting point.

Remember in each bullet point you want to do the best you can to communicate 1) what was accomplished, 2) what tools or techniques were used to accomplish it and 3) what the impact of this accomplishment was on the business.

Another essential aspect of social media jobs is the ability to present the most important information in the fastest way possible. So once you have all the details, it’s time to organize the content. You do this by ordering the bullet points relevant to the jobs you want to apply to. So most relevant bullet points on top, least relevant on bottom, while still making sure the introductory bullet point remains first to set the context for everything that follows.

If you are having trouble determining which points are the most relevant, consult the job descriptions of the types of jobs you are looking for. Remember that the people reading your resume will likely be the same people who wrote those descriptions, so this gives you a good sense of what they value. If the description prominently mentions using Hootsuite or Tweetdeck or Google Analytics, then put the bullet points which show your experience with that towards the top.

Sometimes it will require you to read between the lines, because instead of saying the software, it will list the concept, like “develop and schedule content” or “analyze campaign results.” Try to match the descriptions as well as you can.

If you have lots of bullet points, like more than half a page, and it’s all good and relevant content, you need to organize that information so it’s not a “wall of text” that ends up making the reader’s eyes glaze over.

To avoid that, create between two and four categories and use them to organize the bullet points. This will both reinforce the idea that you have a few primary areas of knowledge and expertise, while simultaneously showing a wide range of skills and accomplishments that can be easily scanned by the reader.

Think about your work experience and look at your bullet points. Come up with three categories that you can distribute the bullet points among while keeping each category roughly equal in size. Some good examples of categories might be “Campaign Development,” “Analysis,” “Project Management”  or “Client Management/Training,”  Ideally, the categories will also reflect the skills most highly valued by the employers you want to work with (look at the jobs listings to see what these are).

The categories don’t have to be perfect, but they should be relevant. They also shouldn’t overlap. For example, having a “Management” category and a “Project Management” category isn’t that helpful, even though they are technically different things. The individual bullet points might be relevant to multiple categories, but the titles of the categories should be clearly delineated.

Distribute the bullet points among the categories you have created. Then rearrange the bullet points so that the most important and impressive descriptions are at the top. After that, order the categories in terms of importance as well. The most important category on top, least important on bottom. Remember the general bullet point we talked about, the one that sets the context for everything? We are still going to use that first. We are going to put it above the categories. This will serve as an introduction to the categories and bullet points that follow. You might even use two bullet points to set the context and describe the overall responsibilities above the categories.

The end result should look something like this:

• Implemented and managed a dedicated social media programme for an FTSE 100 water and waste treatment distribution company serving 8MM customers.

Strategy

• Implemented a Hootsuite social media management platform that improved average response time from 40 to 30 minutes per inquiry, and improved water industry incentive SIM score from 7^th to 5^th place.
• Created and trained thirty-member social media support staff on content creation, crises management, and customer support, enabling 24-hour customer service.
• Wrote business cases, identified skills, created job descriptions, and managing internal recruitment and training during support staff development.
• Developed social media expansion strategies, including YouTube, Instagram, and Pinterest and Vine platforms.
• Implemented a Brandwatch Vizia social media monitoring system that located water treatment system bursts, leaks and blockages, and prepared a coverage area map overlaid with tweets used by incident rooms and call centres.

Social Media Management

• Achieved Facebook engagement rates up to 5% above the industry standard by creating content targeted to key active areas, adding value, and engaging with customers.
• Consolidated multiple departmental content calendars and created a workgroup that incorporated social media into the current workflow and communications framework.
• Created daily Twitter and Facebook articles, photos, campaign infographics, and video content.
• Gathered stakeholder requirements, planned key messages, and scheduled content calendars while developing three outreach campaigns.
• Presented final campaign Excel reports to the Team Lead detailing the performance of each message, number of retweets and clicks, and top influencers and engagers.

Training

• Delivered five presentations on social media using original research and practical demonstrations to the Executive Committee, Property Management, and Visitor Experience departments.
• Wrote 104 pages of social media training documentation for the press team and visitor services staff.
• Provided training, documentation, and marketing consultation that enabled the Water Reservoir Rangers to manage the Facebook and Twitter profiles of five individal Water Reservoir visitor sites independently.

Now the only thing left to do is create a section called “Technical Skills.” This will be a comprehensive word bank with all the software, social media platforms, analysis tools, industry concepts, and skills you are familiar with. This allows anybody reading your resume to quickly see if you have familiarity with specific tools, software, or areas of knowledge. Most importantly, it helps your resume get detected by resume scanning software (iCIMS Talent Platform, Capterra, etc.), therefore increasing the chances that your resume will end up in the hands of a real live human being. In this day and age, you need to be writing your resume with this kind of software in mind.

Although you do want to be thorough about your skills and technical proficiencies, you do not want to spam hiring managers with technologies and concepts you barely know. So what terms should you use? How should you organize these terms?

We have you covered. A starter list of skills you need is just below. Copy and paste these into your resume if you are struggling to think of your own.

• Software: Microsoft Access,Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Visio, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, Adobe Audition, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Lightroom, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008 R2, SQL Server, Exchange Server, Mac OSX, Faronics Deepfreeze, m0n0wall, pfSense, VNC, Ubuntu Linux, SketchUp, Wirecast
• Social Media Software: SproutSocial, Hootsuite, Brandwatch, Radian6, Sysomos, BlitzMetrics, UberVu, Buffer, Socialbakers Builder
• Marketing: Targeting Audiences, Media Relations, Public Outreach, Strategy Development, Stakeholder Communication, Social Media Marketing, Adobe Omniture Analytics
• Online Marketing: Google Adwords, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, CPA, CPC, Facebook Advertising, Twitter Advertising
• Project Management: SCRUM Methodology, Requirements Gathering
• Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, Vine, Digg, WordPress, Tumblr, Hootsuite, Sprout Social, Brandwatch, Xenforo, phpbb, livechat (IRC/Freshdesk), Social Media Customer Support, WordPress, Drupal, TypePad, Drupal Joomla, Bespoke CMS, Amaxus
• Computer Languages: HTML, CSS, Ad Tags, Invision Bulletin Board Systems, WordPress,
• Email Programs: Adestra, Yesmail, Cheetahmail, Gmail, Microsoft Office.
• Industry Concepts: White Hat Marketing, Website Design, User Interface Design, Graphic Design, CMS, Viral Marketing, CRM
• Database: Bacons / Cision, Eden, LexisNexis. Google Analytics, Webalyzer
• Community Management: CMS, vBulletin, Social Media Management, Online Forum Management, Communication Strategies, Customer Interaction

Once you have all the info that applies to you, try and cut it down to no more than half a page of the most relevant content. Then organize the categories the same as the bullet points: most impressive/important on top, least important on bottom. We’ve provided you with info to start, but  the best method for identifying a list of skills is to search for terms online.

Do this by searching for a combination of the following terms on Google. Google words such as “glossary” and “list” combined by specifics like “social media” and “digital marketing”, or specific terms like “SEO.”

After many years and thousands of clients, we’ve seen many mistakes made by people with the best of intentions, or who were working on bad advice. Especially in digital marketing positions, there is a tendency for resume writers to try to “stand out” using eye-catching designs, bright colors, multiple fonts, even images and borders embedded in the page. Even if you are going for a position which involves graphic design, this is a bad idea.

It is entirely possible to stand out in a negative way, and the more artistic you make your resume, the more you subject yourself to the personal tastes and whims of the person reading it. You may find your resume tossed aside because the reader didn’t like that particular shade of blue, or because they found the pink border to be childish. Even in the best case scenario, where the HR person reading actually likes your little decorations, they are still paying attention to how nice it looks and not paying attention to what makes you the right person for the job. A social media manager’s job is to keep eyeballs on the page content, and the same rule applies for creating a resume.

Similarly, there may be temptation to sneak your “personal brand” into the document, or to prove how much you fit with the company culture. Resist this temptation. You don’t need to list hobbies or personal passions on a resume, unless they are directly related to the job. Even then, they should be listed as “Independent Projects” and described with bullet points like all the content above, and most likely you won’t have room for that. You don’t need to declare how much you love video games to promote a video game company, just like you wouldn’t need to prove your passion for garbage to run social media for the city sanitation department.  The very best case scenario here is that the hiring manager sees this and wants to talk about your hobbies instead of what you can contribute to the company. In the end, they may think you’re a cool person, but will have paid no attention to why they should hire you.

The truth is, a resume is meant to be a pretty dry, informative document. At this stage of the hiring process, employers are concerned with one thing and one thing only: Can you do the job they need you to do? The entirety of your document should be dedicated to answering that one question. The  interview is the time when you and the employer can determine whether you personally will blend with the company culture.

A well-written, detailed, and focused social media management  or online marketing resume can secure you a well-paying position in nearly any industry, since just about every industry needs someone who can use social media tools to promote their products or services. Remember, how well you promote yourself shows how well you can promote others, so an effective resume and cover letter combination is the most powerful toll you can have during your job hunt.

What do you think?

We want to hear what you think is missing from this article.

What advice would you give someone applying to social media management and online marketing jobs and related fields?

Don’t want to write it alone? We can help you land the interview.